The Center for Biblical Studies is a multifaceted project which intends to encourage and enhance biblical study and interpretation. This website is one facet of the Center and it may be useful to provide some explanation about the site.

One aim of the site is simply to advertise the Center and its projects such as conferences and the library. The ‘Center Happenings’ page contains links to various announcements concerning the Center.

The ‘Holdings’ pages will allow you to see the books we currently have in the Center and the ones which we are intending to obtain. We are building what we call an ideal pastors reference library. Any good pastor’s library will also include biography and books on Christian living as well but our focus is the reference books (such as commentaries, dictionaries, systematic theologies) which are so essential for serious Bible study and exposition. By listing these books on the web we hope to accomplish a few things. First, you can check to see what we have in order to see if you would be interested to come and use the resources here. Second, as we have sought to isolate the very best books available on each topic or biblical book, we hope our list might provide some direction as people seek to build their own libraries. Third, if you want to help further the mission of the center you could decide to donate one of the volumes in our projected list by contacting the Office of Institutional Advancement.

With the ‘Bible Study Helps’ page we hope to provide a good place to start in finding helpful internet links for each stage of Bible study. There is so much available now on the internet but knowing where to find it is often difficult. We hope this page will help. Of course, keeping up with internet links is a difficult task so if you find dead links or would like to recommend a new link, please contact us at rvannest@uu.edu.

The ‘Book Reviews’ page allows us to provide some more specific evaluations of resources including criticism and recommendation. The books reviewed are not necessarily held in the center’s library. We seek to review a wide array of books in the hope of being useful to people in their own decisions about books to read.

May God bless your study of His word.
Sincerely,

Ray Van Neste, Ph.D.
Director, Ryan Center for Biblical Studies
Assistant Professor of Christian Studies